Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Where Art Thou?

by digby

I find it interesting that after years of overt religion hustling that the GOP is dog whistling so cautiously all of a sudden. They have a true blue social conservative Christian on their ticket and they aren't advertising it at all. All their culture war stuff is class and region based (with a little bit of disingenuous feminism thrown in to ride the current wave.)

I thought evangelical Christianity especially had been thoroughly mainstreamed and that understanding and tolerance of its tenets was considered a necessity if you wanted to win the presidency. In fact, it was only a month or so ago that the two candidates for president had to submit themselves to an inquisition by evangelical preacher, Rick Warren, at Saddleback Church. Today we have a lifelong member of the Assembly of God Church (and an offshoot) as a nominee for Vice President who is, by all accounts, a devout believer --- and she didn't even mention it in her famous speech or at any time afterwards. I find that a little bit curious.

I'd like to see Palin and Biden participate in one of these Warren-fests and have Warren ask them --- in church, in front of his flock --- to lay out her religious beliefs the way he demanded of Obama and McCain. Surely he believes that the voters will be even more enthusiastic about her once they know exactly what it is she believes in. After all, it's pretty close to what he believes in too. Shouldn't he want to help her make her case?

Of course, it's always possible that all this pressure to "talk the talk" is only a cynical political ploy to make Democrats look like they have no morals or principles if they don't adhere to social conservatism. When push comes to shove, it would seem they know that people outside their own belief system will likely not be quite as eager to sign on to some of the wilder aspects of their theology. Or at least that's how it looks.

I certainly would have thought that the entire bipartisan religion industrial complex would have wanted Palin to talk about her religion. They've certainly been telling everyone else to blab about it non-stop for the past decade or so. How odd that they've been silent for the past two weeks.